From the “Land of the Future”: how Latin American Jews became global

ABSTRACT

In this dialogue, the authors discuss what Latin America has meant to Jewish immigrants, particularly during the first half of the twentieth century, and what place Jews and Judaism occupy nowadays in this part of the world. While trying to establish some general traits, the authors focus specific historical and chronological contexts, such as late 19th. Century Argentina or Brazil in the 1940s. The importance of such contemporary issues as globalisation, neo-liberalism and the end of ideologies in Jewish Latin-American life and future are also discussed. The utopian projections connected to Latin America, once seen as a kind of paradise in the imagination of Jewish immigrants, gradually has given way to a more realistic and skeptical assessment of reality, while the increasing importance of economical power in the contemporary seems to determine, more than anything else, the future of Jewish presence in Latin America.

KEYWORDS:

• Latin America
• Jewish immigration
• Exile
• Nostalgia
• Globalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luis S. Krausz

Luis S. Krausz was born into an émigré Jewish family in São Paulo in 1961. He earned a Master's degree in Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and holds a PhD in Modern Jewish Literature from the Universidade de São Paulo, where he teaches Jewish and Hebrew Literature. Krausz translates German and Hebrew Literature into Portuguese, and he is the recipient of several literary prizes in Brazil, including the Benvirá Prize for Deserto, his second novel, also shortlisted for the Jabuti Prize. In 2016, his novel Bazaar Paraná, took second place in the Jabuti Prize, and his latest work, Outro lugar, won the CEPE Prize in 2017. His latest novel, “Opulência,” published in 2019, was shortlisted for the Prêmio Oceanos de Literatura.

Ilan Stavans

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. Born in Mexico in 1961 into a Jewish family with roots in Eastern Europe, he was raised in a multilingual environment. His autobiography, On Borrowed Words, appeared in 2001. Stavans is an internationally known, award-winning cultural critic, linguist, translator, public speaker, editor, short-story writer, and TV host, whose New York Times best-selling work focuses on language, identity, politics, and history. He is the recipient of countless awards, fellowships, and other honours, including an Emmy nomination, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Jewish Book Award, the Latino Hall of Fame Award, Chile's Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, Brazil's Jabuti Prize, Canada's Jewish Book Award, and recognitions from the governments of Nicaragua and Peru, and numerous grants. He has also taught at Columbia, Oberlin, Mount Holyoke, Bennington, and Smith, among other institutions. He is the publisher of the award-winning Restless Books, devoted to bringing superb international literature in translation to English-language readers. He is a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary.